PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY. 735 



Mr. Woodall gave a resum^ of his paper " On the Interference- 

 Phenomena produced by Luminous Points." 



Mr. Crisp announced that it had been decided by the Council 

 that the books in the Society's library should be allowed to be circu- 

 lated amongst the Fellows under regulations which would be announced 

 as soon as the Assistant-Secretary had completed the catalogue of the 

 library which he had in hand. 



Professor Rogers's paper " On Tolles's Illuminator for High 

 Powers " was read. 



Professor Abbe's paper " On the Function of Aperture in Micro- 

 scopic Vision " was taken as read. 



Mr. Crisp read a part of a letter from the author, in which he 

 said : " Having been often blamed for obscurity, I resolved to explain 

 my opinions in such a way now that they cannot fail to be under- 

 stood." The paper would probably exceed 150 pages of the Journal, 

 and the Council had therefore decided to print it as a separate 

 volume. 



Mr. Crisp said that it had been repi-esented to him that some of 

 the Fellows would like tliat the larger part of the Journal should 

 consist of " Microscopy," i. e. matter relating to the Microscope as an 

 instrument, its modifications, imiH'ovements, &c. As every existing 

 source outside the Society was already made use of for " micro- 

 scopical " notes, one of two things must have happened (remembering 

 that the suggestion came from within and not outside the Society) — 

 either communications from Fellows intended for the Journal had 

 accidentally failed to reach him from some unexplained cause, or it 

 was not sufficiently understood by the Fellows that the " Microscopy " 

 portion of the Record was available for communications which 

 might not be so appropriately jmnted as a formal "paper" in the 

 Transactions. 



In addition it must be remembered that all tastes had to be con- 

 sulted in the compilation of the Journal (a point which he liad 

 kept prominently in mind), and it was clear that there was a con- 

 siderable body of the Fellows who took only a secondary interest in 

 the Microscope from an instrumental point of view, and who were 

 more especially concerned" with tlie subjects which required the aid 

 of the Microscoi>c for their investigation. 



A second point which he wished to refer to was, tlmt it was 

 not to be supposed tliat everything mentioned in tlie Jom-nal was 

 intended to be thereby certified as " new." Substantially he hud dis- 

 continued the use of that word altogether in relation to microscopical 

 matters on account of the irritation it seemed to produce, but still 



